But I Knew Him
by The Writer's Life
Summary: Bucky knows Steve even when he doesn't quite know himself, and that might be the only thing in the world that can bring him back to who he was before. Steve/Bucky pairing.


**A/N: So I'm excited about this piece, simply because it's my first piece for this fandom and particularly this pairing, with whom I have absolutely fallen in love with. I would love any constructive criticism anyone has to offer, so please review!**

**But I Knew Him**

_ But I knew him._

The words twist and tug from the part of his brain that Pierce and the other scientists like to play with like a favorite toy or a tormented pet; the part that the Winter Soldier can only feel when he's gone too long without getting his "treatment". He barely registers a flash of discomfort (perhaps it was annoyance; the differences between emotions that weren't black-and-white were hard to distinguish) in Pierce's eyes before there are hands pushing him down. Down to the table, down so that has back was flat against the cold surface and his metal arm hung to his side, the hands didn't quit until he they had his complete submission.

There are always hands, for as far back as he can remember, helping him up, pushing him down, cracking across his already-bruised and battered face. He barely registers them any more.

_But I knew him. _

The words rip themselves from their chains, gaining a pair of wobbly legs. Something unfamiliar dashes into the Soldier's broken and abused mind before Pierce can take it away. He sees a blond man, small, with arms and legs that are like twigs on a sickly tree, curled up on a sofa that is missing half of its stuffing. The man bears a resemblence to the Target, yet he does not look like the same person the Soldier has been programmed to eliminate, for this man looks like he would snap in two with one strong hit. Somehow, the Soldier knows that this is far from true, that this small man would stand up and finish a fight no matter what, and another funny feeling arises in his stomach.

The man has on what must be ten blankets, yet he is still shaking like a leaf in the wind. A smile is still on his face, and that man's smile goes straight to a place in the Soldier that he thought had been meticulously extracted decades ago. The Soldier wants to stay in this memory; to stay close to it like a frightened child does to his or her mother.

However, before he can process any of this, Pierce is speaking, telling him that he must kill the Target. It is the mission; he is the mission. Then, the hands are back, shoving his mouthguard on as one would put a muzzle on a bad dog, and restraining his hands.

_Steve._

The Soldier gives a name to the man.

Steve.

Steves face is the last thing the Soldier thinks about before his torture begins.

XXX

_But I knew him._

The words don't pull at their chains this time. They full-on ambush his thoughts, making it seem as if his thoughts are flammable, and at the worst possible moment.

He is on a helicarrier with the Target, and he is so close to ending the mission. He has never failed before, and just because this mission calls himself Captain America and wears a red, white, and blue suit doesn't mean that he will treat him any differently.

The Soldier is doing well, by all accounts. He has shot him, brought him down, made him bleed, made him falter, yet as he stalks his prey to a higher loft of the helicarrier, something feels wrong. It is the same feeling he had before, when he was on the bridge, but the wipe that they had done was the most intense it had been in years, so everything is even more fried than before.

When the Soldier ends up on the same level as the Target, the Target says something, and the Soldier comes alive. He lays into the Target, beating every inch of his body until he is flat on his back. Something is wrong, though. The Target is not fighting back. That is wrong.

_A small, blond man gets punched in the face in an alley, somewhere in Brooklyn, and goes down. The bully is big, almost six and a half feet tall. He kicks the small man in the ribs, but the small man leaps to his feet. The bully cocks his fist, but a handsome man, with dark hair, gets there first. It is him, the Soldier, but it isn't._

The image bursts into the Soldier's mind violently, like everything else in his tortured existence. "You know me," the Target whimpers, and the Soldier denies it both verbally and with another punch. His knee is digging into the Target's stomach, near the gunshot wound he had placed in him earlier.

_He is huddled next to the small man in a shabby, freezing apartment in Brooklyn. He's never really gone to church, but he prays God won't take this man from him._

"I know when you were born," the Target chokes out. Hos face is a swollen mass of cuts and blood, and his right eye is has a flower blossom of a yellow and blue bruise. "Your name's... James Buchanan Barnes."

The Soldier is enraged, now. "YOU!" he roars, with another punch to the Target's face.

_He slings an arm around the small man as they walk down the street after another failed double date._

"ARE!" Another punch.

_He props the small man upright against his chest and rubs circles on his back during an asthma attack, hoping that he is doing this right._

"MY!" Another hit. The Target's nose starts to bleed. "MISSION!"

_He forces a cup of chocolate into the small man's hands. They have just buried his mother, and only death could tear him from the blond. Steve. The blond is Steve, and he is... he doesn't know. _

The Target is weak. Defeated. He gazes up at the Soldier with affection though, and the Soldier is unsettled. "Then finish it, 'cause I'll be with you 'til the end of the line," he murmurs, and the Soldier freezes.

Then the Target is falling, like rain from a cloudy sky, like tears from sad eyes.

_He pulls Steve in for a hug._

_ He saves Steve from yet another fight._

_ He watches Steve draw._

_ He steals medicine from the drugstore when Steve is sick. _

_ He feels relief when he sees Steve again. Steve is no longer small, but he is Steve._

The Soldier follows the Target.

This is the first mission he has failed in nearly seventy years, because failing has consequences. Failing means that he is subjected to more pain than usual, electric shocks so powerful that his tongue lolls when they are done and knife wounds carefully etched upon already broken skin. However, somehow, this is better than letting the Target, Steve, whoever he is, drown. The Soldier drags him to the river bank, and uncerimoniously lays him out.

_He patches Steve up after a fight, running his hands over Steve's protruding ribs, aghast at the bruises, and tracing the outline of a cut right above Steve's eyebrow with deft fingers._

The Soldier walks away from the Target.

_But I knew him._

XXX

_But I knew him._

The words are ghosts, following the Soldier, or whoever the hell he is, wherever he goes. The name the Target had choked out as he was punching him, James Buchanan Barnes, sounds like something he should know. He has done research, and it has led him to the Smithsonian.

Now, the Soldier confronts another ghost. He stands in front of a glass panel, the name **James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes **splayed across it. There is a picture of a man. This is the man from the other half of the memories of Steve, the protector. Everything is so confusing to the Soldier, and his confusion multiplies when he makes a realization.

The picture is of him.

He is the Soldier, and the Soldier is Bucky Barnes. Bucky Barnes is the Soldier. He is Bucky Barnes.

It becomes too much for the Soldier. He backs away slowly, turns away slowly, so as not to draw any suspision, but as soon as he is out of sight, he runs. He runs like he is pursuing is a target, but he his running away, and he runs so far away that he can't see straight and vomits all over a hedge. Another memory hits him like a train.

_He is with Steve on a train, and they are fighting. He supposes that he doesn't have to protect Steve anymore, with him being a mountain, now, but he will still lay down his life if it is required. The fight escalates, and suddenly, he is hanging by one hand from the train, as Steve reaches out for him. However, it is too late, and he falls. The last thing he sees is a look of anguish and terror upon Steve's face, one that doesn't sit right on his handsome features, and the last thing he hears is an earth-shaking scream from Steve. He should feel scared, but all he feels is remorse. He was leaving Steve all alone. _

The Soldier gasps. "I am the Winter Soldier," he mutters to himself. "I am not Bucky Barnes. I am not Bucky Barnes. I am the Winter Soldier."

He straightens, and continues walking. He has absolutely no idea where he was going, but all he knows to do was keep walking. For the past seventy years, he has been a dog on a leash, told when he could speak, move, eat, and feel, and now that is gone.

Something tells the Soldier that he could go to Steve, but his consicousness rejects the idea. What if he hurt Steve? There is something there, he could almost call it fear, but the Soldier doesn't feel fear.

_Steve lies huddled in his bed, sickly and coughing terrible hacks that shake his entire frame. Between coughs, he gasps for shallow breaths, and his big hands find their way around Steve's little one. He finds himself with tears on his face._

"Get out!" the Soldier growls at the memories, as if he could just order them away. "I am..." he falters. "I don't know who I am.

_But I knew _him.

XXX

_ But I knew him._

The Solder doesn't go to Steve. Instead, he lives in the alleys, under bridges, in drug houes, anywhere he can find a place to crash.

As the months pass on, the Soldier starts to be able to place feelings in himself. He can identify sadness and anger quite easily, along with fear. He supposes he has always felt those three. He can put a label on satisfaction and calmness. Those two are less common, but every once in awhile, they pop up. Yet, there is one feeling he can not put a name to. He feels it when he goes to the park every morning and sits on a bench and watches Steve run.

The feeling is present in memories, too.

_He watches as Steve wakes up in the morning after a particularly cold night with a smile on his small face. He wants to run to the bed and hug Steve and not let him go, but instead, he gives him a smile and continues with breakfast._

_ He watches as Steve sleeps, his breathing labored, and wants to place a kiss on his forehead. He wants to be able to breathe for Steve._

The Soldier has many memories of Steve being sick. He wonders if they're all from the same illness, or if he was really sick a lot. Bucky must have had a good reason for staying with Steve so loyally, in the Soldier's opinion.

_He lays with Steve curled against him, his head on his chest, in the frigid cold. He could stay like this forever._

After awhile, the Soldier can no longer live with it. He makes a trip to a local library, and locates a dictionary. In the corner of the building, he leafs through the pages, looking over and reading every word until he finds the one he was looking for.

_Longing [lawng-ing] (n.): strong, persistent desire or craving, especially for something unattainable or distant; The man was filled with a longing for home. _

Longing. The feeling was longing.

After that, he goes back to the park. Steve is running, just like he always is, and when he takes a break, the Soldier approaches him. When Steve sees the Soldier approaching, he freezes, and his eyes go wide. His lips part slightly.

"Bucky," he whispers almost disbelievingly. "Are you... are you okay?"

"Did he love you? Did he love you like... in that way? Bucky, that is," the Soldier asks. Steve stares at him.

"You are him. You are Bucky," he whispers, and the Soldier feels anger rising up in his stomach. He clenches and unclenches his metal hand.

"Did. He. Love. You?" The Soldier enunciates his words clearly, so that Steve won't miss what he is asking.

Steve looks at him with pain in his eyes, and the Soldier wants to look away. He wishes that he couldn't feel again, because when Steve looks at him like that, there is sadness.

"Sometimes I think he did, but I'm not sure," Steve replied in a small, shaky voice that didn't match his stature.

"Did you love him?" The question leaves the Soldier's lips before he can even consider the question.

"Yes. Yes, and I failed you - I mean him." Steve doesn't hesitate in his answer, and the Soldier blinks. Steve looks as if he is going to start crying at any moment, which doesn't match the memories the Soldier has been having. Steve doesn't cry.

The Soldier can't take it. He turns away from Steve, and walks away.

"Come home with me." Steve's call is expected, and the Soldier turns back around.

"Not today."

XXX

_But I knew him._

_ He shares his childhood with Steve. They spend every minutes at and after school together, and he is constantly pulling Steve from fights._

_ He helps Steve's mother when Steve is so sick that he is delirious and just tosses and turns and kicks the blankets off ebfore pulling them up to his chest. _

_ He takes care of Steve when his mother dies, making sure that he doesn't get beaten to death on one of his careless crusades, and making sure he puts food in his stomach._

_ He steals medicine and food when Steve gets pneumonia without a second thought about morals._

_ Steve, the only person in the world he begged for when they were torturing him, appears to rescue him._

_ Always Steve._

It has been a year since the Soldier dragged the Target from the river. Now, Bucky Barnes stands at Steve Roger's door, and knocks with his human hand.

It takes a moment, but he hears heavy footsteps approaching the door, and when it swings open, there is Steve, exactly like the picture he has been holding in his head like a treasure.

"Bu - I mean, um... oh," Steve stutters, and Bucky feels his face go red.

"Tell me my name again," he whispers, ducking his head.

Steve straightens up, as if gathering courage for what is to come. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, but I call you Bucky. You are brave and loyal and the best friend I've got, and I love you." Steve's voice cracks at the end, and Bucky gazes up.

"Can you call me Bucky again?" he whispers, and the look of elation on Steve's face could light up the cosmos for an eternity.

"Oh, God, yes," he responds, and before Bucky can register what is happening, there are arms around his body. A few moments later, there are lips on his, and Bucky remembers another feeling: love.

"So I can stay?" Bucky asks once Steve pulls back.

A smile breaks across Steve's face. "You know me, pal. Of course you can."

And Bucky smiles back. It won't be perfect, he knows, because they both have a lot of baggage, but it is a start. And every story has to have a beginning.

**I will most likely write some fluff to add to this, so stay tuned. Tell me what you think, please, and thank you for reading. I hope that everyone had a very happy holiday season.**


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